Heavens

It turns out the moon is a lot wetter than we ever thought.

When Apollo astronauts returned from the moon 40 years ago, they brought back souvenirs in the form of moon rocks to be used for scientific analysis, and one of the chief questions was whether there was water to be found in the lunar rocks and soils.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Your smart phone may soon be able to know not only that you're at the mall, but whether you're in the jewelry store or the shoe store.

Following one of the largest studies ever conducted in Parkinson's disease (PD), researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine report today in The New England Journal of Medicine that rasagiline, a drug currently used to treat the symptoms of PD, may also slow the rate of disease progression.

Most people don't think twice about the ability to choose the movie they want to watch, the book they want to read or with whom they will have coffee. But what if you didn't have the choice, or were never taught how to make decisions regarding leisure activities? That's the reality for some women living in group homes according to a new study from the University of Alberta.

GREENBELT, Md. -- A NASA team is developing a transparent coating that mimics the self-cleaning properties of the lotus plant to prevent dirt from sticking to the surfaces of spaceflight gear and bacteria from growing inside astronaut living quarters.

People admitted to English hospitals in an emergency on the first Wednesday in August have, on average, a six percent higher mortality rate than people admitted on the previous Wednesday, according to research published in PLoS ONE today.

BERKELEY, CA — The precise conditions inside a white dwarf star in the hours leading up to its explosive end as a Type Ia supernova are one of the mysteries confronting astrophysicists studying these massive stellar explosions. But now, a team of researchers, composed of three applied mathematicians at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and two astrophysicists, has created the first full-star simulation of the hours preceding the largest thermonuclear explosions in the universe.

A dramatic new vista of the center of the Milky Way galaxy from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory exposes new levels of the complexity and intrigue in the Galactic center. The mosaic of 88 Chandra pointings represents a freeze-frame of the spectacle of stellar evolution, from bright young stars to black holes, in a crowded, hostile environment dominated by a central, supermassive black hole.

Berlin, Germany: Patients with soft-tissue sarcomas at high risk of spreading were 30% more likely to be alive and cancer free almost three years after starting treatment if their tumours were heated at the time they received chemotherapy, according to new research. The finding bolsters the case for intensifying exploration of the strategy in other types of cancer.

Both minimally invasive and traditional open approaches can successfully repair nasal fractures, provided the procedure is matched to the individual fracture, according to a report in the September/October issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. A treatment algorithm based on factors such as fracture type and degree of septal deviation (displacement of the bone and cartilage separating nostrils) may help surgeons choose the appropriate treatment.

ATLANTA—September 21, 2009—Profound discoveries and insights on the frontiers of science do not burst out of thin air but often arise from incremental processes of weaving together analogies, images, and simulations in a constrained fashion. In cutting-edge science, problems are often ill-defined and experimental data are limited. To develop an understanding of the system under investigation, scientists build real-world models and make predictions with them. The models are tentative at first, but over time they are revised and refined, and can lead the community to novel problem solutions.

A research project 10 years in the making is now orbiting the Earth, much to the delight of its creator Rohit Trivedi, a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. Equipment recently delivered to the International Space Station by the Space Shuttle Discovery will allow the Earth-bound Trivedi to conduct crystal growth experiments he first conceived more than a decade ago.

Before it was learned that matter burns by taking up oxygen, most chemists sought to explain combustion as the release of a mysterious substance, which they named "phlogiston". Phlogiston theory was a conceptual breakthrough that helped chemists conduct experiments and share ideas. Only when it came to pinning down the distinctive physical properties of phlogiston did it become clear that no such thing exists.

This 34 by 20-degree wide image provides us with a view as experienced by amateur astronomers around the world. However, its incredible beauty and appeal owe much to the quality of the observing site and the skills of Stéphane Guisard, the world-renowned astrophotographer, who is also an ESO engineer. This second image directly benefits from the quality of Paranal's sky, one of the best on the planet, where ESO's Very Large Telescope is located.

BOULDER--Challenging conventional wisdom, new research finds that the number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun's impact on Earth over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. The study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Michigan, finds that Earth was bombarded last year with high levels of solar energy at a time when the Sun was in an unusually quiet phase and sunspots had virtually disappeared.